Kaldheim brought us the new snow duals at common and there was much excitement about these new dual lands and how they could shake up Pauper. I decided to look and see what impact the new duals are having on the format.

Snow Duals Not Being Used

So, using MTGgoldish deck searching for individual cards we find some interesting results as Alpine Meadow, Arctic Treeline, Glacial Floodplain, Rimewood Falls and Sulfurous Mire have yet to see significant play in a successful deck.

Common Sense Uses of Snow Duals

We have three cards that are extremely popular in the format in Highland Forest, Ice Tunnel and Volatile Fjord which wholly makes sense and I will give those reasons below

Highland Forest synergises with Utopia Sprawl which is a key component in RG Ponza decks allowing for the greater ramp into cascade creatures.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3825976#arena

Ice Tunnel appears in the Dimir decks as Snuff Out is a key removal spell in Pauper.

Dimir Faeries https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/pauper-dimir-faeries#paper

Dimir Delver https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/pauper-dimir-delver#paper

Volatile Fjord was always the most likely card to see play as it also makes Skred better and Izzet Skred was already a top archetype for the Prismari college.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3818612#arena

New Uses for Snow Duals

On the whole I had not really expected to see Snowfield Sinkhole make an initial impact as the main Silverquill archetype is Orzhov Pestilence which relies on lifelands to stay in the game with all the Pestilence interactions causing life loss. Imagine my welcome surprise when I saw Ravager.Pe utilising them as additional dual mana sources below to great effect

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3842763#arena

I reached out to Ravager and they are a really nice guy, much like with Dimir decks utilising Snuff Out was a key decision and is used instead of Ash Barrens. Unlike many Pestilence inspired decks this version has a significant amount of life gain already and can absorb the punishment from Snuff Out. This is sweet brew is definitely a version of the archetype that I could see myself playing.

Meanwhile, over at the Witherbloom college we have a really interesting deck, featuring Into the North and Woodland Chasm for some great league performance. I have been building a Golgari rock deck since the around the start of the third UK lockdown and this deck has really got me tempted to adopt it.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3825985#arena

I reached out to Hamuda Mtg as he took this to a 5-0 Challenge finish but I was about to receive a twist of fate. Hamuda was only playing the deck and credit should go to a pair of brewers in the Pauper Guild called David Garcia @Saitama and Joaquim Oliveira @oliverjuqs. They have been busy looking at how to exploit cards that pay off on Basic land types, whilst most regular players knew Skred would be better and Snuff Out more open, David and Oliver have been pushing that envelope looking at cards like Wood Elves to search up Forests and cards like Tendrils of Corruption that also get better with more Swamps.

So, following on this deck maximises the potential of Wood Elves with some great ramp pay offs.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3736985#arena

Oliver has been running Jeskai Blink, one of my favourite decks and now you can maximise the snow mana to make Skred more potent. 

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3747135#arena

Brewing Ideas

I was surprised to see so little adoption of the new lands, whilst I can understand that in the challenge community they may not wish to do something away from tried and trusted strategies. There may well be more league decks bubbling under the surface yet to receive plaudits when achieving publication on the Weekly 5-0 deck lists. It was certainly an interesting period when MTGO wasn’t producing deck dumps recently, more people looked at the various spell table and mtgmelee inspired events.

My partner Rachel built her Gruul Zoo deck last year that splashes a plains via Ash Barrens as this enables her Wild Nacatl to become a 3/3 regularly. Highland Forest is already a good option in this deck to also support the Kird Ape’s and better colour fixing. Maybe we will see more people use Wild Nacatl’s in the format.

David Garcia also had a fun deck showing off the potential for Wild Nacatl.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3816334#arena

One idea I have considered trying is splashing in a single colour deck, whilst we do not have an obvious big payoff card like Treasure Cruise available to us, I am currently trying Dimir Guildmage in Mono Black Devotion, the hybrid casting cost isn’t affected and subsequent devotion to black but it does allow for both activated abilities to be used. To ensure that I can have the blue mana from the Ice Tunnel I use Twisted Abomination which has Swampcycling to fetch the Ice Tunnel.  The real issue is that the Guildmage is very fragile to the removal in the format so whilst the ceiling is really high, the floor is extremely low, effectively putting you in the cellar with no wine only whines.

Looks like I was not the only one thinking about utilising land specific cards, Spire Golem has traditionally only been seen in Mono Blue decks and the affinity for islands aids being able to bring it into play early. Well imagine my surprise when I saw this, Spire Golem in Izzet Skred!

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3825992#arena

Another way to potentially abuse the new lands has to be the domain mechanic, where each basic land type improves the effectiveness of spells and permanents. The list below demonstrates this concept and whilst the results were not the best, it definitely displays proof of concept.

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=29131&d=429409&f=PAU

Conclusion

The impact so far from the Kaldheim Snow Duals is limited so far but those that are used are making a difference. Lots of potential and exploration of the format has still to be done so things may well change soon.

Have you brewed anything where the Snow Lands are used? I’d love to hear your stories and read your brews.